Israel has launched a wave of attacks on Gaza over the last two days in the latest violations of a ceasefire it agreed with Hamas last October. At least six people were killed in separate strikes on Thursday, health officials said, including four civil service employees in an attack on a finance ministry building. Thirty people were wounded in the strike, including six who are in critical condition. Israeli strikes have hit the north, south and center of the strip since Thursday, according to local media. The attacks come as Gaza’s health ministry renews calls for the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to be reopened to allow sick and wounded Palestinians to get treatment. The ministry said 21,468 patients need care outside the Palestinian enclave, including 6,430 classed as priority cases.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Proximities Picks

David Tarbox is, I think, one of the most interesting artists in the UK. He also happens to be the producer of the Proximities podcast, so it’s an understatement to say he’s a friend of the newsletter. David’s latest exhibition, Bomb The Format, opens in London on November 5th. The works on display use religious imagery to create “bombed” shrines that challenge the far right’s use of Christianity to justify hatred and racism towards migrants, highlighting how this misuse of religious symbols distorts Christianity’s core values of love, compassion and acceptance. You can find more info here and David’s Instagram here.

Myanmar

Japan is lobbying a global financial crimes watchdog to remove Myanmar from its blacklist in another sign that major nations want to bring the country, which has been in a state of civil war for more than five years, back in from the cold. Tokyo wants the Financial ​Action Task Force to drop requirements that its members apply enhanced screening to financial transactions with Myanmar, according to a Reuters report citing a senior Japanese government official and a person familiar with the matter. Myanmar’s military junta toppled a democratically elected government led by global figure Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, triggering a conflict that has killed an estimated 100,000 people.

More from Reuters here.

Lebanon

A military court in Lebanon has charged 13 people with crimes connected to the seizure of a truck carrying explosives belonging to Hezbollah, state media reported. The move underlines the shifting relationship between Lebanon and Hezbollah, which has been under pressure to disarm after the government declared the group’s military activities illegal following the outbreak of a conflict with Israel, during which Israeli forces have killed almost 4,000 people and occupied parts of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah did not immediately comment.

More from AP here.

A horrible milestone. The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the fastest-spreading on record, has passed 10,000 cases, according to new government figures. Almost half of that number have died. The watershed comes as concerns grow over the epidemic’s spread to other countries, with cases linked to the DRC outbreak confirmed in Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria. The epidemic, which was formally declared in May, was caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there is no approved vaccine. The response has been hampered by conflict, distrust from local communities and a funding shortfall.

More from AP here.

Proximities Picks

There’s a new publication, with a fantastic concept, that I’m a genuine fan of and I’m pretty sure that if you read Proximities, you’re going to like it too. Break free from your monolingual media bubble with Translator – a new magazine of translated journalism from beyond the Anglosphere. Sign up to their free weekly newsletter for curated stories from around the world, summarised into English. Recent stories include an Arabic investigation into the disappearance of Sudan’s food aid and a Nepali op-ed about why the country needs to look inward at its own development model. Find Translator and the newsletter here.

Egypt

The editor of respected independent Egyptian news site Mada Masr, Lina Attalah, was detained for several hours and fined three million Egyptian pounds ($53,400) as a court ordered the site to shut down. Attalah, named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2020, was convicted of running the outlet without a license. A statement from a collective of 119 rights groups and media outlets, ​including Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, called the ⁠case an "unprecedented attack on press freedom."

More from Reuters here.

West Bank

Israeli forces today destroyed nine memorials in the occupied West Bank dedicated to Palestinians killed by Israel, in what analysts say is an attempt to erase Palestinian history and symbols of identity and resistance. Such memorials are common across the West Bank, many standing for decades, but they are increasingly targeted by the Israeli military as attacks on Palestinians by Israeli troops and settlers spiral. Israeli authorities justify the destruction of memorials by saying they glorify “terrorism.” Almost 200 settler attacks against Palestinians have been reported since the beginning of the West Bank olive harvest on September 27, a cherished tradition and economic lifeline for Palestinians.

More from The New Arab here.

An ostensible ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in October last year has not stopped Israel from continuing to commit genocide in Gaza, a group of independent experts commissioned by the U.N. said in a new report today. The report, which cataloged a series of specific incidents, said that Israel was “continuing to commit genocidal acts with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza.” At least five people, including a 7-year-old girl, were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza today. The Israeli military has killed more than 1,550 people, mostly civilians, since the so-called ceasefire was signed.

More from AP here.

Proximities Picks

There’s a new publication, with a fantastic concept, that I’m a genuine fan of and I’m pretty sure that if you read Proximities, you’re going to like it too. Break free from your monolingual media bubble with Translator – a new magazine of translated journalism from beyond the Anglosphere. Sign up to their free weekly newsletter for curated stories from around the world, summarised into English. Recent stories include an Arabic investigation into the disappearance of Sudan’s food aid and a Nepali op-ed about why the country needs to look inward at its own development model. Find Translator and the newsletter here.

Tanzania

Tanzanian opposition activist Twaha Mwaipaya has gone missing in Kenya, according to a police report seen by Reuters. Mwaipaya was travelling by taxi to visit friends east of the capital Nairobi when ​three men intercepted the car and took him away, Amnesty International researcher Sikula Oniala said. John Heche, vice-chairman ​of Tanzania’s ⁠main opposition CHADEMA party, whose leader Tundu Lissu is on trial for treason, urged Kenyan authorities to find the activist. “Nairobi cannot remain an abduction hub ​for dictators,” he said.

More from Reuters here.

Libya

President Donald Trump backtracked on disparaging remarks he made about Libya at a rally on Saturday after authorities in the country summoned the U.S. chargé d’affaires. “(U.S. Senator) Jon Ossoff ​personally sponsored a bill to bring armies of ​migrants from terror-infested countries like Libya, Yemen, Haiti, Somalia. Remember what I called them? Shithouse countries," Trump said at the rally in Georgia. Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah responded: “We will not accept Libya’s dignity and its people being used as material for electoral disputes.” Dbeibah heads one of two rival governments in Libya, with his administration headquartered in Tripoli. The other government, based in the east, also condemned the comments. While stopping short of an apology, Trump said the U.S. was committed to strengthening its bilateral relationship with Libya and thanked it for helping to “defeat ISIS” in a post on his Truth Social platform. He also praised the Libyan people. Trump finished, though, by saying that Libya “cannot remain a corridor for illegal migration.”

More from Anadolu here.

More than 150 people were killed in drone strikes on a market in South Sudan, officials told Reuters, accusing neighboring Sudan of carrying out the attack in the latest sign that Sudan’s civil war is spilling over its borders. The Sudanese military has yet to comment. The strikes took place in the disputed and oil-rich Abyei region, which has been jointly administered since South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011. Officials in Sudan’s military-led government told Reuters that the Rapid Support Forces group, which has been fighting a war with the Sudanese Armed Forces for more than three years, now has a presence in Abyei. Yohana Akol Ngor, the caretaker minister of information in the region, denied that when it was put to him by the news agency.

More from Reuters here.

North Korea

North Korea will resume broadcasting anti-South Korea messages across the border via loudspeakers, according to Kim Yo Jong, the ‌powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang is reviving the tactic at a tense time after Seoul accused the North last month of planting mines in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone between the two, causing an explosion that injured three South Korean soldiers, an allegation Pyongyang denied. “Our tactical hunting teams are taking new positions, and within October, the loudspeakers for psychological warfare against the ROK will be in operation along the whole border,” Kim said. South Korea has also deployed loudspeakers along the border in the past, blasting everything from K-pop music to weather reports.

More from The National here.

Malaysia

Malaysia has banned civil servants from using the Google-owned navigation app Waze over its ties to Israel. Waze was founded in Israel, and though it was acquired by Google in 2013, remains headquartered in Tel Aviv and is subject to Israeli law. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar ​Ibrahim ordered the ban "to protect government information and users' ​personal data from the threat of misuse by the ⁠Israeli regime," his office said in a statement. Members of the public were also encouraged to seek alternatives such as local app TuJu. Malaysia is staunchly pro-Palestine and maintains no diplomatic relations or economic ties to Israel.

More from The South China Morning Post here.

Nigeria has announced its first Ebola case linked to the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and East Africa. Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said the diagnosis was confirmed in a woman who had traveled to the capital Abuja from Uganda. Also today, Kenya said it had discovered a new case, bringing its total to nine. The epidemic in DRC was formally declared in May and has killed a confirmed 4,381 people out of more than 9,000 cases. It is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record and the response has been hampered by conflict and mistrust from locals.

More from BBC here.

Mali

An ISIS-affiliated armed group in Mali has killed at least 48 people, security sources and officials told Reuters. Islamic State Sahel Province carried out coordinated attacks in at least five places, the sources said, in revenge for an attack on suspected informants by pro-government forces, including ‌members of Russia's Africa Corps. The western Sahel region has for years been the center of a conflict between the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and armed groups with links to al-Qaeda and ISIS. The rebels have put Mali’s government under intense pressure in recent months with a series of high-profile attacks.

More from Reuters here.

Gaza

At least seven people were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza today, according to hospitals in the Palestinian enclave. The strikes happened right across the strip, hitting its central region as well as the north and west. In one attack, a man and woman identified by al-Shifa Hospital as Akram Yassin and his wife, who was not named, were killed in a strike on a residential apartment block in which several residents were also wounded. Israel has killed at least 1,522 Palestinians in Gaza since agreeing an ostensible ceasefire with Hamas in October last year.

More from Middle East Eye here.

A well-known critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame has been found beheaded in neighboring Uganda. Robert Kabera, a 50-year-old former Rwandan army sergeant major, claimed asylum in Uganda in 2020 after he was accused of sexual assault, a charge he said was politically motivated. Kabera had also been well-known as a musician in Rwanda and had a YouTube channel with 144,000 subscribers on which, since fleeing to Uganda, he regularly criticized Kagame’s government. Police said on Monday that Kabera’s body was discovered by locals on the outskirts of the capital Kampala. But “the head, up to now, is still missing,” Superintendent of Police Lydia Tumushabe told AP. Opponents of Kagame have been killed outside Rwanda before. In 2014, Patrick Karegeya, a former intelligence chief, was found dead in South Africa, where he lived in exile. At the time, Kagame made comments widely interpreted as both an admission and a warning. "Any person alive who may be plotting against Rwanda, whoever they are, will pay the price. Whoever it is, it is a matter of time," he said. Kagame subsequently denied the government had any involvement. Rwandan authorities have yet to comment on the discovery of Kabera’s body.

More from BBC here.

Gaza

The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said it will be forced to stop giving monthly food rations to about 500,000 people in Gaza due to a cash shortfall. WFP said it got less than half as much funding for its Palestinian operations in 2026 as in previous years and that it was reducing the number of recipients of monthly assistance from 1.6 million to 1.1 million people. “It's a year into the agreement ​of this ceasefire. Well, life is still brutal here. There is no proper shelter...There is no basic services. There is ​no safety, no security,” acting Executive Director of the WFP Carl Skau told Reuters. The agency says that two-thirds of Gaza's ​population suffer crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, including about 200,000 facing what it deems emergency conditions.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Saudi Arabia

Bangladesh says it is seeking answers from authorities in Saudi Arabia after two Bangladeshi nationals were executed in the holy city of Mecca without the government in Dhaka being informed. The Bangladeshis, a man and a women, were put to death after they were convicted of committing “indecent acts” inside a mosque. Riyadh provided no further information on the nature of the acts. Bangladesh is reported to have requested details on the offenses involved and on the legal proceedings. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most prolific users of the death penalty. At least 175 people have been executed so far this year, according to Amnesty International, the majority of them foreign nationals.

More from Middle East Eye here.

About 80 Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians harvesting olives in the occupied West Bank, beating people with clubs, using slingshots to hurl rocks and viciously assaulting a 64-year-old American journalist, who a group of men kicked and pummeled with sticks as she lay on the ground. A Reuters photographer also saw at least one settler fire a gun. The settlers, dressed in black with their faces masked, descended from a hill above a terraced olive grove where people from the Abu Falah village had gathered to pick the fruit, a cherished tradition of Palestinian life and a vital economic lifeline. Several of the settlers carried gas canisters, according to Reuters, and olive trees were set ablaze. The Israeli army arrived as the attack was underway but did not stop it. Instead, soldiers fired tear gas and live ammunition at Palestinians who had fled down the hill and picked up rocks to defend themselves. One Palestinian man was shot in the thigh by the soldiers, journalists on the scene reported. Speaking from a hospital bed, Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine, visibly distraught, said she was kicked at least 50 times on the ground, as well as clubbed, and that she feared she would be dead if she hadn’t been wearing a helmet and flak jacket. Settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have rocketed since the beginning of the harvest, with at least 170 reported since September 27.

More from Reuters here.

DR Congo

More than $700 million in funds intended to fight the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are unaccounted for, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said today. Speaking at a press conference in Kinshasa, Africa CDC Director-General Dr. Jean Kaseya said $962 million was disbursed to organizations leading the Ebola response in DRC but that a joint verification exercise with Congolese authorities could only trace just over $200 million. Kaseya said it was too early to speak of embezzlement but that it was clear there was a problem with transparency and financial reporting. The number of confirmed Ebola cases in what is the fastest-growing outbreak on record has passed 9,000, according to new figures, and 4,381 people have died.

More from Africa News here.

India

The founder of India’s cockroach political movement was detained ahead of a planned protest in Delhi as ongoing youth-led demonstrations continue to pose one of the biggest challenges to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his 12 years of power. Abhijeet Dipke’s “preventive” detention came after police banned the protest and thousands of security personnel flooded the center of the capital to prevent it. Dipke's Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) has, alongside several opposition parties, been marching to demand the resignation of India's election chief over a revision of voter lists they say favors Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Two other CJP leaders were arrested this week and jailed for five days for defying a separate protest ban. The cockroach movement has emerged as a significant youth-led force since successfully forcing the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan earlier this year over persistent exam paper leaks.

More from BBC here.

A former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Joseph Kabila, has announced the formation of a coalition of political and military organizations opposed to the current government, which includes the powerful M23 rebel group that controls significant territory in the east of the country. Kabila, who is also based in the east, said at a news conference that the alliance would be known as the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation. President Felix Tshisekedi’s government did not immediately respond to the announcement, but analysts said it represented a serious challenge to his administration and to U.S.-brokered peace talks between DRC and the M23, which is backed by Rwanda.

More from AP here.

West Bank

Israeli forces have raided the offices of two Palestinian NGOs in the occupied West Bank and taken control of the entrance to a major hospital, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. Soldiers searched the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association in the city of Ramallah on Tuesday, according to Al Jazeera, and confiscated equipment belonging to Addameer, which advocates for the rights of Palestinian prisoners. Israeli snipers were reported to have been deployed around the entrances to the Palestine Medical Complex. In 2021, Israel designated six Palestinian human rights groups, including Addameer and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, as “terrorist” organizations.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Ethiopia

Ethiopian government troops have entered a town close to the border with Eritrea, Reuters reported, citing residents, as fears grow of imminent war between the neighbors. Witnesses said Eritrean troops had crossed into the town, Zalambessa, last week but it was unclear if they were still present. Fighting broke out between the government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and several smaller groups opposed to the government last month. The conflict has heightened already severe tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia, with Addis Ababa accusing Eritrea of supporting the TPLF. The two fought a border war from 1998 to 2000, during which up to 300,000 people were killed.

More from Reuters here.

At least 139 people, including at least 15 children, drowned after a boat capsized while sailing from Djibouti to Yemen, according to the United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM). About 84 passengers from the vessel, which was carrying more than 300 people, are unaccounted for, meaning the death toll may rise. There were around 82 survivors, the IOM said, all of whom are Ethiopian nationals. People fleeing war and poverty, many from Ethiopia and Somalia, often risk perilous crossings to Yemen, hoping to go on to wealthy Gulf countries in search of work. In 2025, more than 900 people died or went missing along the route, according to IOM’s Missing Migrants Project.

More from Reuters here.

Pakistan

Pakistan has declared a state of emergency in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, and suspended its government, run by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s PTI party, as his supporters plan a march on the capital Islamabad to demand his release. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi accused the PTI of failing to tackle rebels, who Pakistan says are supported by Afghanistan, in favor of concentrating on securing Khan’s release. The former cricket star fell out with the military, considered by most to be the main arbiter of politics in Pakistan, before he was ousted by parliament in 2022 and then arrested on corruption charges the following year. Naqvi has warned marchers they will be forcibly stopped from entering Islamabad.

More from AP here.

Guinea-Bissau

A medical trial funded by the United States that will withhold hepatitis B vaccines from thousands of newborn babies in Guinea-Bissau has been given the green light despite howls of protest. The trial, which will be carried out by Danish researchers, appears central to efforts by anti-vaccine U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to slash vaccine provision at home. Late last year, Kennedy’s advisers removed universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for American infants. The trial will reportedly involve 14,000 babies in Guinea-Bissau, which has some of the highest rates of hepatitis B in the world, with the vaccine withheld from half of them for the first six weeks of their lives. “He’s taking advantage of a developing country,” said Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, referring to Kennedy. “Is it because children in Africa are more expendable than children here?”

More from the Guardian here.

Things are moving very fast between Ethiopia and Eritrea and a disastrous war may be looming. Ethiopia today informed the U.N. Security Council that Eritrea was conducting an “all-out invasion” of its territory to which it had no choice but to respond, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The letter follows two weeks of fighting between Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the local authority in the Tigray region, which borders Eritrea. Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war from 1998 to 2000 in which up to 300,000 people were killed. Landlocked Ethiopia has made several bellicose statements in recent years, saying it must have access to the sea. Eritrea has a long coastline along the increasingly contested and strategic Red Sea.

More from Reuters here.

Brazil

The Brazilian Supreme Court has issued an arrest warrant for Eduardo Bolsonaro, a brother of presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, in a move that is sure to add more fire to an already red-hot contest. The warrant, issued by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, comes just weeks before a runoff between incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Flavio Bolsonaro, who is the favorite. The Supreme Court in June convicted Eduardo Bolsonaro of lobbying the U.S. to interfere in the trial of his father, former right-wing president and Donald Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Eswatini

The leader of Eswatini, King Mswati III, today vowed to strengthen his small country’s “enduring friendship” with Taiwan, while on a reciprocal visit to Taipei after Taiwan’s president traveled to Eswatini in May despite Chinese attempts to thwart the trip. Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, is Taiwan’s only ally in Africa and one of only 12 small nations, mostly in Latin America, the ​Caribbean and the Pacific, that have diplomatic relations with the self-governing island that Beijing claims is part of its territory. In April, Taiwan accused China of pressuring three African countries to refuse overflight permission for President Lai Ching-te. He later made a surprise trip in what is often referred to as an “arrive, then announce” approach, ordinarily used by leaders visiting war zones.

More from Reuters here.

A Chinese militia vessel has been seen off Taiwan’s sensitive Pacific coast for the first time, according to a Reuters report, as Beijing continues an apparent campaign of intimidation against independently governed Taiwan, which it views as part of its territory. The Minfudingyu 07902 ship is a fishing boat that doubles as a militia vessel, a surveillance report reviewed by the news agency said. The use of such boats is a long-standing Chinese military tactic aimed at maintaining a civilian appearance. The vessel was tracked operating alongside a Chinese coast guard cutter and a research vessel one day in mid-August, the report said. Taiwan views its east coast as vital for securing supplies in the event of a Chinese invasion. Officials in Taiwan say China, which hasn’t ruled out the use of military force to capture the island, is rehearsing a potential maritime blockade.

More from Reuters here.

South Sudan

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa have held talks on plans for the first general election in South Sudan since the world’s youngest country was established in 2011. The talks in South Africa came a day after Ramaphosa, who chairs the African Union’s High-Level Ad Hoc Committee on South Sudan, held regional discussions on whether the country would be ready to conduct the poll by its scheduled date of December 22. South Sudan has been beset by conflict, drought and political infighting since gaining independence from Sudan after years of civil war.

More from DW here.

Syria

Syria today called on the International Maritime Organization and Bulgarian authorities to carry out an independent investigation after a drone hit a cargo ship in the Black Sea, whose 10 crew members, including nine Syrians and one Egyptian, are missing. The ship, the Alfa Watan, was attacked inside Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone on Tuesday. Mazen Aloush, director for international relations of the Syrian General Authority for Ports and Customs, said the probe should look into why search and rescue operations were called off before the fate of the crew was determined. It is unclear who carried out the attack. Russia has previously hit cargo ships ​in the Black Sea during its war ​with Ukraine.

More from The National here.

Eritrean troops have pushed deep into northern Ethiopia, according to media reports and eyewitness accounts, as a two-week old conflict in Ethiopia threatens to spread outside its borders. Fighting erupted between Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TLPF) last month after the TPLF joined forces with the Oromo Liberation Army, the Fano militia in the Amhara region and four smaller groups in an effort to topple the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Analysts had feared that any significant deployment of forces from Eritrea, which Addis Ababa accuses of backing the TPLF, could lead to further regional escalation. Eritrea fought alongside the Ethiopian military in a previous war with the TPLF from 2020 to 2022 but relations have since deteriorated, with officials from landlocked Ethiopia regularly warning they must have access to the Red Sea, along which Eritrea has a coastline.

More from Africa News here.

West Bank

A Palestinian man was shot dead in the occupied West Bank during an attack by Israeli settlers on a group of Palestinians harvesting olives near the village ‌of Burqa, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The dead man was identified locally as 44-year-old Ali Hassan Yusor al-Bazzari, and Reuters reported that his son Danial, 12, ​wept over his body at his funeral before it was draped in a Palestinian flag. The Israeli military said both settlers and soldiers opened fire and that the soldiers were responding to reports of a Palestinian throwing a rock at a settler, without saying why settlers were in the area. The attack was the latest incident in a campaign of settler violence during this year’s olive season, a deeply symbolic time for Palestinian communities, in which Israeli settlers have shot at farmers, chopped down olive trees and attacked journalists.

More from Reuters here.

Turkey

The mayor of Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city and a stronghold of the secular opposition, has defected to President Tayyip Erdogan's AK ‌Party (AKP), gifting the ruling party an important mayoralty it had never won in an election. The city had been led by the opposition Republican People’s Party for more than two decades until Mayor Cemil Tugay joined the AKP in a ceremony attended by Erdogan in Istanbul today. The AKP suffered a string of defeats in mayoral elections in 2024 and, since then, many opposition mayors have been targeted on corruption charges they say are bogus. Dozens of mayors, including Istanbul's Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, are in prison awaiting trial.

More from AP here.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has reiterated his stance that the landlocked country must have access to the sea, a thinly veiled threat against neighboring Eritrea, which lies on the Red Sea, as escalating conflict in Ethiopia threatens to pull in regional nations. Reuters today published a report from one of its correspondents, Giulia Paravicini, who travelled to Eritrea, a secretive country with no independent media that rarely gives foreign journalists access. It’s a valuable insight into the region at a pivotal and dangerous moment.

More from Reuters here.

Pakistan

Supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan have started a long march to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad to demand his release. Thousands of marchers set out from the city of Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which is ruled by Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and located 275 km from Islamabad. The former cricket superstar fell out with the military, considered by most to be the main arbiter of politics in Pakistan, before he was ousted by parliament in 2022 and then arrested on corruption charges the following year. The government warned that demonstrators would be blocked from entering the city. "We will finish it once for all," Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said.

More from BBC here.

Myanmar

Malaysia has sent almost 1,500 asylum seekers back to Myanmar despite warnings from the U.N. and rights groups that they may not be safe there. Myanmar has been in the grip of civil war since the army toppled a democratically elected government led by veteran campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021. The returnees, the first batch of 5,000 people scheduled for deportation back to Myanmar, were convicted of staying illegally in Malaysia, which is home to more than 100,000 Burmese refugees. It was not immediately clear whether any of the 1,500 were members of the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, who are persecuted and denied citizenship in Myanmar. Almost a million Rohingya fled into Bangladesh in 2017 during a brutal military crackdown on the community.

More from AP here.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has killed an average of seven children a day since the epidemic was formally declared on May 15, Save the Children said, adding that children are being infected at an alarming rate. At least 2,071 children aged under 18 have contracted Ebola during the outbreak and 961 of that number, almost half, have died. The fatality rate for children under five is 61 percent, according to DRC’s health ministry, significantly higher than the overall rate of 48 percent. The number of people confirmed dead in the outbreak has passed 4,000, new health ministry figures showed on Thursday. The response has been hampered by myriad challenges, including an ongoing conflict and distrust from local communities.

More from Africa News here.

Gaza

A former senior U.N. food official is taking legal action against his dismissal, which he says was motivated by his stance on hunger in Gaza. Benjamin Davis, who worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for 26 years on a ​renewable contract, was told his employment would end on September 30 at the request of Director-General ​Qu Dongyu, according to documents seen by Reuters. The papers cited breaches of international civil service standards ​which require staff to act with impartiality. Davis was among ​hundreds of employees who held moments of silence for hunger victims in Gaza, and also authored a report on food access in the Palestinian enclave. The dispute went public this week when Qu, speaking at a FAO conference, defended the dismissal of an unnamed staffer by saying, “We will not allow you to play the game here of ​human rights.” A large crowd of staff is reported to have gathered at FAO headquarters in Rome ​on Wednesday to applaud Davis as he left the building on his last day.

More from Reuters here.

South Korea

An extraordinary row between South Korea and Ukraine escalated today as South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung threatened to take unspecified "further action" against Kyiv if it did not apologize for revealing it sent two captured North Korean soldiers to the South. North Korea has dispatched thousands of troops to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky disclosed the transfer to the U.N. General Assembly last week, angering Seoul, which said it was supposed to be secret. The two soldiers, it has been reported, asked to be sent to South Korea. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said there had been a "diplomatic misunderstanding," but Lee responded by accusing Kyiv of attempting to "bring war on the Korean Peninsula."

More from BBC here.

Explosions were heard in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa overnight, Reuters reported, citing three unnamed diplomats in the city, as fighting between government forces and a coalition of rebel groups intensified in the north of the country. A source linked to the new rebel alliance, which brings together the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the Oromo Liberation Army, the Fano militia in the Amhara region and four smaller groups, told the news agency it had carried out several drone ​strikes on the capital. If confirmed, it would be the first drone attack by anti-government forces on Addis Ababa, which is hundreds of km from the front lines in the north. Separately, Ethiopia closed its embassy in neighboring Eritrea, accusing Asmara of supporting the rebels, and ordered 10 Eritrean diplomats to leave Ethiopia within 48 hours.

More from Reuters here.

Lebanon

Israel has carried out widespread war crimes in southern Lebanon, including destroying entire villages and towns and killing civilians, journalists and medical personnel, according to a new report exclusively seen by The New Arab. The more than 200-page document, which catalogued Israeli attacks since March, was handed to Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday by Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri, who heads the country’s National Committee for International Humanitarian Law, which compiled the report. The investigation was carried out despite Lebanon agreeing to waive its right to take legal action against Israel over war crimes as part of a ceasefire agreement in June.

More from The New Arab here.

Algeria

The Algerian parliament has adopted a law that would introduce the death penalty for people convicted of arson attacks on forests or fields after deadly wildfires swept the country. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune called for an amendment to the penal code after fires last month in which 12 people were killed, according to official figures. Independent news outlets have reported that the true number could be vastly higher. Though Algeria has had the death penalty for specific offenses for decades, there has been an effective moratorium, and an execution has not been carried out since 1993. Amnesty International called the move “a deeply retrograde response” to the fires.

More from Al Jazeera here.

Eight people, including a well-known journalist, were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza today in the latest breaches of an ostensible ceasefire Tel Aviv agreed with Hamas last October. An attack on a passenger van in Gaza City left six people dead, medical officials and witnesses said, and a woman was killed in a strike on an apartment building in the city. Journalist Mohammed al-Najjar was killed by a drone in Khan Younis. Footage circulated on social media showing his three children crying over his body, which was shrouded because his head was missing. Several people were also wounded in separate attacks. Israel has killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, since the purported ceasefire was declared. At the time of writing, Israeli strikes on the Palestinian enclave were ongoing.

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Sudan

An American peace plan for Sudan could lead to the country being split between two competing governments, a top advisor to the country’s army-led government told Reuters. The proposal, put forward by U.S. Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos, would include a 90-day ceasefire after which talks would begin to agree on an end to the war and restart a process to bring Sudan under civilian rule. “Our concern is that the approach Mr Boulos continues to advance appears to accommodate the militia’s continued existence and preserve a place ‌for ⁠it in Sudan’s political future,” Amjad Farid, who advises army leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on international affairs, said, referring to the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, which has been locked in a ruinous war with the Sudanese Armed Forces for more than three years.

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Iraq

Crowds of Iraqis celebrated today as U.S. troops pulled out of their final bases in the country, bringing Washington’s 12-year deployment to fight the ISIS armed group to an end. The withdrawal marked the “successful conclusion of the military mission that defeated ISIS in Iraq,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. Iraqi forces, some of whom paraded in vehicles ​through the streets of Baghdad to welcome the departure, will now be fully responsible for the country’s security, while the U.S. will continue to carry out counter-ISIS operations in neighboring Syria. ISIS was defeated in 2017 and pushed out of all the territory it controlled, but it retains the ability to launch small hit-and-run attacks.

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Children are going increasingly hungry in Yemen as escalating fighting disrupts access to healthcare and treatment centers, the U.N. children’s agency said. “We're very concerned about a very visible increase in acute malnutrition ​among children,” UNICEF’s Country Representative in Yemen, Akhil Iyer, ​told reporters via video link from Aden. Iyer said that more than ⁠a quarter of almost 2,900 children screened in recent ​weeks by UNICEF in accessible areas were acutely ​malnourished, including 200 classified as severe, which is the worst level. The agency said that represented just a snapshot in a country where 2.2 million children under five ⁠are projected ​to be acutely malnourished this year, ​with over half a million estimated to be suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

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DR Congo

A young doctor has died of Ebola on the front lines of the battle against the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Victor Kingombe, who was working in Tshopo, one of the most recently affected provinces, was buried by healthcare workers in full protective gear as friends and family watched from a distance. “Our internal medicine doctor is gone. Doctor Victor, why? Why, Doctor? Our internal medicine doctor,” one of his colleagues, fellow doctor Agnes Kalokola, cried out. Though hope was recently sparked by a downturn in cases in Ituri province, the outbreak’s epicenter, neighbouring provinces have seen escalating infections. The epidemic has ​killed a confirmed 3,779 people out of 7,820 cases, according to the latest figures. The true number is believed to be higher.

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Africa-UN

Several African leaders took the opportunity of the U.N. General Assembly this week to push for a permanent seat for the continent on the Security Council. The 15-member Security Council has five permanent members – the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and China – that hold veto power. The remaining seats, which have no such power, are rotated every two years, and Africa holds three of those. There is growing disquiet among African leaders, though, who argue that level of representation is insufficient. “Every nation is sovereign and equal under the (U.N.) charter. Yet, on the gravest question of war and peace, five nations possess a permanent power that the other 188 do not. The equality proclaimed in this assembly ends at the doors of the security council,” Kenyan President William Ruto told delegates. “How can a world led with a right conscience justify the denial of 1.6 billion Africans the right to equal representation?” asked Ethiopia’s President Taye Atske Selassie. The leaders of Liberia, Botswana, Namibia and Somalia also called for reform.

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At least one person was killed and several wounded when security forces opened fire during unrest at the burial of an Ebola victim in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after residents demanded to see the body. The crowd wanted to confirm that the deceased had died of the virus, a member of an Ebola response team said, underlining persistent distrust from local communities as DRC battles the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record. The bodies of people who have died from the illness remain highly infectious and are buried according to strict protocols. There have been several attacks on burial teams, other Ebola responders and clinics, with some families trying to retrieve the bodies of their relatives. The outbreak has now ​killed a confirmed 3,779 people out of 7,820 cases, according to the latest figures. The true number is believed to be higher.

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Morocco

Morocco’s centrist Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) has taken first place in parliamentary elections, according to early results. The result will not fundamentally change the political landscape given Morocco is a semi-constitutional monarchy in which King Mohammed VI retains sweeping powers. PAM, though, will be expected to implement economic policies aimed at addressing youth discontent, which boiled over last year as Gen Z protests turned deadly. Analysts say the party was boosted by the recruitment of Fouzi Lekjaa, the popular football federation chief, who is seen as a potential prime minister.

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Ethiopia

The Ethiopian army said today it had killed 272 fighters from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) as the armed group said it was in a “full-blown war” with the government. Widespread fighting erupted on Wednesday after months of tension and just days after the TPLF, which is the regional authority in the country’s Tigray region, said it had joined forces with six other armed groups to topple the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, dubbing the coalition the “Ethiopian Peoples’ Forces Alliance for Survival.” Ethiopia’s central government fought a ruinous war with the TPLF from 2020 to 2022, during which up to 600,000 people were killed, according to an African Union estimate.

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Fighting has erupted in Ethiopia between government forces and the party that governs the country’s Tigray region, with both sides accusing the other of triggering the violence. Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) forces seized three federally controlled airports in the region, including in Tigray’s capital Mekelle. The TPLF, which led Ethiopia’s ruling coalition from 1991 to 2018, said it was launching what it called “a defensive war” after reports of government drone strikes against its forces earlier this week. The clashes come just days after the TPLF announced it was joining up with six other armed groups to topple the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The TPLF and Abiy’s administration fought a devastating war from 2020 to 2022, during which up to 600,000 people were killed, according to an African Union estimate.

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Myanmar

Female inmates in Myanmar face sexual violence, torture and life-threatening medical neglect, a report has found, with thousands of women imprisoned since a civil war broke out in 2021. "Women who have been detained as political prisoners in Myanmar paint a deeply disturbing picture of a ​prison system in which suffering and neglect are both deliberate and routine," Bryony Lau of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which carried out the investigation, said. Prisoners ​have been beaten with sticks, chains and metal pipes, and subjected to electric shocks, cigarette burns, and prolonged stress positions. Myanmar’s civil war began after the military overthrew a democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who has also been imprisoned.

More from Reuters here.

Naoero

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly today, President David Adeang confirmed his country’s decision to change its name to Naoero. The South Pacific island nation with a population of about 12,000 people was previously known as Nauru. “There are moments in the life of a nation when its people are called to remember who they have always been,” Adeang said. “This is such a moment for us.” Naoero gained independence in 1968 after almost a century of colonial rule under the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Germany. The name Nauru was given to the island by colonizers because they couldn’t pronounce Naoero. Adeang ended his speech with three words: “Say our name.”

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Rebels killed more than 100 Malian soldiers in an attack this month, two sources told Reuters, as government forces continue to face huge pressure from armed groups. Fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) launched the assault on a military camp in the town of Dioura on September 10, the sources said. A security source told Reuters that 130 soldiers were killed with more than 100 taken hostage, while a diplomatic source said about 120 soldiers were killed. In April, JNIM cooperated with the Tuareg-led separatist group the FLA to launch nationwide attacks in which the country’s defense minister was killed. Mali’s military junta came to power in a 2021 coup, promising to defeat the insurgents, but the situation has worsened since then.

More from Reuters here.

NB: Proximities recently published a deep dive on the insurgency in Mali here.

China

China has expelled two top generals, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, from the military and the Communist Party, accusing them of corruption and disloyalty. Zhang was vice chair of the powerful Central Military Commission and second only to President Xi Jinping in the military hierarchy. Liu was chief of staff of the commission’s Joint Staff Department. The expulsions are the latest in a long-running purge of People’s Army top brass over corruption, but accusations of disloyalty are rare. Zhang and Liu "seriously violated political discipline and political rules, formed cliques and factions, and were disloyal and dishonest to the party," the state-run Xinhua news agency reported, citing official documents.

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Nicaragua

Nicaragua has carried out a campaign of enforced disappearances, torture and arbitrary detention of political opponents, according to a report from U.N. experts, which said the conduct amounted to crimes against humanity. Three U.N. experts asked to investigate human rights in Nicaragua said what they found was a systematic attack against civilians carried out by state institutions, including the police, prosecutors and ⁠the intelligence services, coordinated under a chain of command that led to senior levels of government. Daniel Ortega, the co-president of Nicaragua alongside his wife, has been in power for almost two decades. In July, he said the country would no longer hold elections.

More from Reuters here.